Duff Goldman's Secrets To Making The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies Of All Time

Duff Goldman's known as the Ace of Cakes, but really, he's a connoisseur of cookies. He's been obsessed with a classic chocolate chip since preschool — the promise of that treat helped him power through his intense hatred of ketchup-topped hot dogs at lunchtime — and has been honing his technique for years.

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After plenty of trial and error — both firsthand and as a judge on Worst Bakers In America, Kids Baking Championship, and Spring Baking Championship — the Food Network star's come up with a recipe he loves, as well as a few secrets to making the perfect chocolate chip cookie every time. (His paper towel trick is key if you make this all-too-common mistake — see No. 3!)

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1. Never Take This Shortcut.

Most cookie recipes call for mixing the dry ingredients separately, which seems like a massive waste of time, but it's crucial for avoiding The Attack Of The Mutant Cookie. No, really.

"You want to make sure all the leavening and all the salt is mixed evenly in the flour, 'cause if you don't, there's going to be a big chunk of salt somewhere, and nobody wants a salty cookie," he explains. Or worse, "you're going to have all the baking soda in one cookie and it's going to explode and be a mutant. All the other cookies won't have enough baking soda then, and they'll all just sit there and melt, so mix the dry ingredients."

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Chelsea Lupkin

2. Scrape, Scrape, Scrape Señora.

You know that song "Jump In The Line" from Beetlejuice? As you're baking, change that "shake, shake, shake" to "scrape, scrape, scrape," and let it be your mantra. After mixing the butter and sugar, most people dump in ingredients without scraping down the bowl. Huge, huge mistake.

"When you're whipping the butter and sugars together, that's part of the leavening process, which makes the cookie rise," he says. "The baking soda's part of it, but the air you whip into the butter and sugar expands as the cookie bakes, helping it rise."

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If you don't make sure the butter and sugar is evenly mixed into the dry ingredients, you wind up with buttery pockets, which sound great ... at first. "The butter melts as the cookie bakes, creating puddles," Goldman adds. Those puddles lead to misshapen, tough-in-some-parts, mushy-in-others cookies.

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3. Do This To Avoid Greasy Cookies.

If you've ever taken a batch of cookies out of the oven, only to see that they're strangely pick-pocked and holey — and no, we don't mean a chorus-of-angels holy — it's because the butter wasn't mixed in properly. The bottoms of the cookies will likely be greasy too.

While there's nothing you can do about the texture, you can get rid of the greasiness. Goldman swears by dabbing the bottoms of the treats with Bounty paper towels, because they're lint-free, so they absorb the butter without getting bits of paper on them. Pro move.

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4. Know When To Back Off.

You want everything evenly mixed — but not overmixed. The more you mix, the tougher the flour gets, turning a cookie's pillowy texture into something chewier, like a bagel. "Then you have to get neck muscles involved just to bite off a piece," he laughs.

Chelsea Lupkin

5. Time It Just Right.

At the 8-minute mark, check on your cookies. If they're lightly golden and puffed up, they're ready to take out. If you prefer less gooey treats, you can keep them in for up to 12 minutes, but no more than that — otherwise you lose that soft middle.

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6. Look For Wrinkles.

Here's one area where the wrinklier something is, the better. After you've pulled the cookies out of the oven, look for wrinkles around the outside. "That's a really good sign," Goldman says. "What this means is that you whipped the air into the butter just right, and with the baking soda, the cookies puffed up in the oven, and you took them out just before the middle set, so they deflated, creating those wrinkles."

It means you've found cookie nirvana — they'll have crisp edges and a buttery, slightly gooey center. Victory never tasted so sweet.

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